Love Redefined

What is love? This question seem to stimulate the minds of skeptics and normal thinkers alike. But truly? Can anyone really defined such as an abstract word? Is it a feeling, or just a state of mind? Is it physical or metaphysical?

In line with the love month, our local parish held a Taize prayer organized by the Parish Youth Ministry to somehow enlighten young adults, teens and pre-teens alike with how 'love' should be perceived and defined. As it is a prayer, before the love talk with a priest, we had scripture readings and prayers songs.

According to our speaker, he defined love based from M. Scott Peck's published book The Road Less Traveled as "the will to one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth... an act of will- both an intention and an action... and we do not have to love, we choose to love" implying that to love is for the good of one's and another's self and that it is done whole-heartedly and not just because we have an obligation to because it is of our own choosing.

Also, he subdivided love into four, three of which I have already learned in my first year in university under my subject Philosophy I. 

The first subdivision he presented is Agape, a Greek word that means a selfless, sacrificial and unconditional love for someone or something. This is the highest form of love wherein the person is willing to sacrifice something precious and important.

Second is Eros, this is described by my professor as 'physical love' where attraction is mainly involved implying that it is the shallowest form of love. But according to our speaker that night, he defined Eros as an intimate form of love which is an exclusive kind between lovers, connecting the thought of 'erotic love' with it.

Third is Philia. He said it meant love found in friendship. But according to my Philosophy professor, it meant love for truth and knowledge, also he called it as Philos.

And the last is Storge. Pronounced as (stor-gey). This wasn't part of my Philosophy professor's lecture and to our speaker it meant love for family.

It was an amazing experience even if this isn't my first to attend a Taize prayer what made it special is it was with my friends and I get to communicate with my faith again, to strengthen it. More so, a lot of learnings for me too!

Booze and its Effects

Rare are the nights I leave the comfort of my bed covers but when I do, rare are the times these nights go as I please them to be. One happened just a few nights ago when my college upperclassmen organized a small beach get-together as a celebration for their births. There were five celebrants, two were in my year, three were upperclassmen.

The scene I arrived to that night was not new to me as I was used to this life in high school when I was looking for myself through the loud boom sound of the music, the mystery of the dark night, and the acid the alcohol leaves in my pharyngeal cavities. I drank my usual, two bottles of beer, an upperclassman gave me a shot of pure vodka (without ice and it stung), another upperclassman sprayed my mouth with a mixed drink (I think it has apple juice with it) and I snagged a cup of Brandy. I was tipsy, true enough. 

But the most bothersome of all was that my friend, who drank just a little because she wasn't used drinking, got more than a little tipped. She was drunk to the point she was bawling her eyes out like all other drunks did, like I did in high school.

She was crying for something her heart cannot accept. She was crying to ease out the heartache.

She is this kind of girl who stayed by the lines and does not readily go out of it. She's nineteen and still a little naive as she still haven't experienced to be loved by another in the sense of serious dating, haven't gotten to experience heartache because of it, and move on. If you ask me, she's still inexperienced.

This guy is a very close friend of ours too. He's had his fair share of rejections and heartaches but he doesn't give up easily. He is a poet, and like my girl friend, a big fan literature. Maybe that's why friend fell for him. I don't really have a precise reason from her.

Now what happened after my girl friend got herself tipped by a shot of pure vodka is she was shouting to the girl my boy friend apparently likes, in which case, one of my girl friend's close friends too making the situation more complicated. Now, my guy friend and girl he likes are talking, and my girl friend saw them. She suddenly started grabbing the attention of the girl so that she and our guy friend will stop talking. Then all of a sudden, she started bawling on my chest for no reason. The rest is history.

It truly is fascinating how can alcohol not only intoxicate the cerebellum but bring us out to our true core.